Fiber optics has been amazingly used in industries nowadays, including telecommunications, defense, food and drug, mining and oil and gas industry. A fiber optic cable comprises of a core made of plurality of layers of glass with different optical properties and a cladding material surrounding the core. Typical diameter of the cladding material is 125 μm. Based on its purposes, the core might be 8 to 9 μm in a single-mode fiber or 50 or 62.5 μm diameter in a multiple-mode fiber. Single-mode core is used for long-distance communication links, whilst multiple-mode core is used for short-distance communication links and for high power transmission. A protective coating is applied after the cable is drawn to give further protections to the fiber optic cable.
Typically, transmission by fiber optics is preferred in particular industries due to some important features of the fiber optics. Fiber optics has large information and long span distances carrying capacity for the use in telecommunications industry. It is also very light, making it suitable for installation in aircraft. Furthermore, unlike electrical transmission, fiber optics transmission does not generate sparks that it can be used safely in hazardous area wherein flammable or explosive gas presents.
The fiber optics sensors are widely used to measure the physical properties, such as temperature, pressure, strain, stress, acoustic, etc, in various industries. For new installations and maintenance of fiber optics, it is often necessary to splice the fiber optics in order to integrate a first fiber optic to a second fiber optic. Typically, fiber optics splicing is achieved through arc or filament heating wherein two fibers are fused together. Fusion splicing uses heat to join two fiber optics. The source of heat comes from an electric arc or a tungsten filament. Instead of fusion splicing, mechanical splicing might also be utilized as an alternative for splicing. However, this alternative technique yield splice with higher optical loss and lower reliability compared to fusion splicing, and therefore fusion splicing is preferable than mechanical splicing.
Fiber optic splicing can be done using fusion splicer. Various types of fusion splicer are currently available in the market. Due to safety issues, the fiber optic splicers are recommended for use only in a non-hazardous area or safe zone area such as splicing laboratory or clean room, wherein no flammable gas/particles are present nearby. Several steps are taken to splice fiber optics using the fusion splicer. The coating of the fiber optics to be spliced is removed beforehand and the bare fiber optics are cleaned using isopropyl alcohol or other solvents. Next, each fiber optics is cleaved and aligned into fiber holders. The fiber holders are then installed into the fusion splicer and the two fibers are fused together either by arc or filament heating. After the splicing is completed, the splice area is re-coated using protection sleeve.
Due to increment of the use of fiber optics in industries, there is indeed a need to perform fiber optics fusion splicing safely and efficiently in any kind of working environments. U.S. Pat. No. 7,693,385 discloses a workstation designed for performing fiber optics fusion splicing in an aerial bucket truck. The workstation comprises a support structure mounted to the bucket of the aerial bucket truck and a pocket mounted in the support structure for holding fusion splicer firmly. With this workstation, a technician can perform splicing while he is sitting in the aerial bucket truck, 15 to 30 feet above the local terrain.